


Sidelines

by doomedship



Category: The Good Doctor (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:29:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24342094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomedship/pseuds/doomedship
Summary: Claire dates. It's not that he doesn't already know that. It's obvious. But lately it's been a spectator sport.
Relationships: Claire Browne/Neil Melendez
Comments: 22
Kudos: 107





	Sidelines

**Author's Note:**

> Playing fast and loose with how residencies work, probably, and also some characters from the show. Please enjoy!

Claire dates.

It's not that he doesn't already know that. It's obvious. But lately it's been a spectator sport. 

He watches her agree to go out with some guy called Josh, from oncology. 

Josh is the right age, floppy hair, got that class president look about him. Good-looking, if you're into that well-heeled, daddy's boy kind of thing. 

There are definitely no tattoos on Josh.

He thinks Josh might have gone to Stanford too, now he thinks about it, but for obvious reasons, they didn't overlap. 

Josh is twenty-nine and he flirts openly with Claire, and doesn't have to worry about doing so. Claire rolls her eyes and says she's working, but by the end of the exchange Josh has her number and they're going for drinks and a live band on Friday night. 

She catches him watching and turns, hands on hips.

"What?" she demands, and she's defensive and a little self-conscious. He shrugs.

"Nothing. I just didn't think frat boy was your type," he says casually. 

"Oh, come on. I bet you've never even said two words to him before," she scoffs. "He could be a nice guy."

"Probably," he says, and he pushes off the edge of the nurses' station he's currently leaning on. "But he's still not your type."

  
===

  
She dresses down on Monday morning, and her hair is unbraided.

He sticks his hands in his suit pockets and looks at her with his head on a slant, and irritation rolls off her at the cocky look he's deliberately giving her.

"So, how right was I?" he asks casually, and the look she gives him could probably freeze hell over twice. He revels in it.

"Assuming you mean Josh, no I'm not seeing him again, you'll be delighted to know" she says, flicking her loose hair over her shoulder. It's distracting when it's wild like that.

"Told you. Not your type."

"Maybe Stanford guys aren't my type," she says pettily, and he smiles.

"Probably not," he agrees, and he glances away then, because he thinks maybe deep down he knows she's right (about him; she's obviously talking about him).

And maybe he's a little rattled. Which is annoying; he always prefers to be the one on top of their little verbal repartee. Doesn't like to give her ground, but she's taking it anyway. 

She gives him an arch smile, and then he's the one left irritated. She's getting better at getting to him and he doesn't know if he likes or loathes it.

Claire Browne is getting under his skin. 

  
===

  
A patient asks her out, and he almost rolls his eyes out of his head at the cliché. 

He's some feelgood technology philanthropist who volunteers in Malawi over the summer and who likely lives in some kind of eco yacht and plays the guitar for sick kids. 

It pisses him off when he realises that that might actually be Claire's type.

She declines, but because she has to. She sounds genuinely sorry when she tells him she can't, and that's annoying as hell. 

Because he wants her to say no and mean it. And he's even more annoyed by what that says about him.

She takes offence at his ensuing bad mood and snaps at him to stop being such a dick when he's said something too petty, crossed a line too far. 

He thinks about apologising, but doesn't, and watches as she storms off to pathology, muttering under her breath. 

She's not afraid of standing up to him anymore and secretly, it lights a strange kind of fire in him when she does. 

He slams his laptop shut with a thud. 

He knows she's meant to end up with some Mr Right. It's the least she's owed by fate she after the life she's had; a rich, handsome, ethically sourced partner to match her unrelenting capacity for human compassion. 

He studies the reckless tattoo on his forearm and watches the muscle twitch. 

He is _not_ Mr Right.

  
===

  
"You can date that guy," he tells her when he next sees her alone, hours later. "He's been discharged. And I don't care."

She looks at him mildly. "Don't you?"

He looks at her. "I meant I won't stop you," he says, biting down his irritation. She smiles. 

"Still not my type," she says, and saunters out.

He has no idea which one of them she's talking about.

  
===

  
He usually dates forward women. 

Established in careers, established in opinions. Dominant. He thinks that part is probably his mistake; he picks women who want to fight him for power he's not even contesting and it never works out. Even if he tries to give ground, which he rarely does.

Claire's not his type. 

He doesn't date younger (not that much younger, anyway) and he definitely doesn't date subordinate. And he's not used to the subtlety; the clever play and the goddamn subtext, not at the level she's got. 

She runs rings around him sometimes and it leaves him reeling. 

And she never needs to fight him for power because she already has as much as she wants, all day long.

She might be a little his type. 

He can't deny he finds her stone-cold beautiful. Thinks she's one of the most intelligent people he knows, emotionally and otherwise. And her heart is pure fucking gold, so much more so than his that he can't help but be a better man when he's next to her.

He meets her eye while he's knuckle deep in somebody's chest cavity that afternoon.

She's not stone-cold beautiful; she's like wildfire on open water. 

If he had a type before and it wasn't her, that's not true anymore. 

  
===

  
"My brother's in town."

Morgan's in one of the low couches, flipping through a medical journal; Claire's at the table with him. He doesn't like where this is going.

"That's nice," Claire says, barely looking up from their patient notes.

"You should go to dinner with him," Morgan says idly. That gets Claire's attention. She looks at him, then at Morgan.

"Tell me you're not trying to set me up with your brother."

"He's cute. You're cute. Good looking babies right there-"

He tries to ignore the conversation; he fails. Claire glances at him again, so he feigns disaffection and holds a chart up in front of his face. He has no idea what he's looking at.

"-Don't you think, Dr Melendez?" 

Fuck's sake. 

"I'm not one to comment on Dr Browne's personal life," he says, deadpan, and Claire snorts at the obvious lie. She looks at him scathingly, then back at Morgan. 

"Fine, I'll go," she says sweetly, and Morgan smiles. 

"Great. I'll pick the restaurant. Don't worry, I'll make it expensive. Ariel'll pay."

He puts Morgan on suction in their next surgery, and doesn't regret a thing. 

  
===

  
"Do I have a type?"

He's drinking coffee in an espresso bar with Jessica, and she looks at him like he's drooled on his shirt. 

"What sort of question is that? Probably, everyone does."

"I'm nothing like your new guy."

"Maybe you weren't my type," she answers, but he knows she's teasing. She looks at him with regret sometimes, and he pretends he doesn't notice. He likes their friendship. 

"What's brought this on? Are you seeing someone?"

"No." He rolls his eyes but she doesn't back down, leaning over the table with relish. 

"Who is it? Oh, God, it's not Audrey again is it? Because she is definitely not-"

"It's not Audrey," he says, quickly, before they can go down that particular rabbithole. Jessica looks smug. 

"But there is someone," she says, smiling like the sneaky bastard she is. 

"Shut up," he mutters, and she laughs at him for a while. 

"Don't get hung up on types," she says, eventually. "It's always surprising when it happens. You know that."

He does. These days, he thinks he's always surprised. 

  
===

  
As far as he's aware, Claire goes out with Ariel Reznick at least three times. He hears Morgan interrogating her after each date, and says nothing. 

He doesn't like to think about the possibility of those dates ending up at her place.

He definitely doesn't like what that says about him.

  
===

  
On an otherwise unremarkable Thursday, he walks in on Claire and Morgan talking in the office, and he hears Ariel's name. 

It's both good and bad; he wants to know what's happening, and there's no way he's bringing it up himself. But he also really doesn't want to hear this.

"Don't tell me. You're the future Mrs Reznick," he says, raising an eyebrow as he throws a binder of case notes to each of them. Better to be on the offensive, he thinks, and he's ready to go in hard.

Claire rolls her eyes, and Morgan grins, an almost manic glee in the way she latches onto the subject. 

"We'd be sisters," Morgan says, and Claire looks at her like she wants to throw her binder at her. 

But he is aware that she never corrects him, never fights back. Never says she's stopped seeing the guy. It bothers him. 

More than it should. 

It suddenly doesn't seem like fun and games anymore to tease her about her dating life, and he shuts it down. 

"Get up to speed on the case notes. This patient's Aoki's VIP."

He locks himself in his office then, and doesn't talk to her until he sees her in the OR.

He avoids catching her eye, because he suddenly doesn't like the helpless feeling he gets when he sees that particular shade of green.

  
===

  
They all go out for drinks to celebrate Park's birthday. 

No partners, at least. He really doesn't want to see two Reznicks in one evening, especially not if Claire's hanging on the arm of either of them. 

Claire herself departs early; he immediately wonders whether she's going to meet Ariel, and knocks back a beer, fast.

Morgan watches him watching Claire leave; he catches her and he's on his guard. Nobody is more aggressively speculative than Morgan Reznick and he definitely doesn't want to be under that microscope. 

"My brother's flying back to Canada in the morning," she says casually. There's a long pause. 

"Sorry to hear that," he says, and wonders whether he sounds as insincere as he thinks he does. 

"Oh, I'll bet," Morgan says, still smiling that annoying, feline smile. "Don't worry. He'll be back. I knew he'd love Claire."

He wonders whether he'd be able to get away with booting Morgan off his service. 

"Can I get another?" he says to the bartender. "Actually, make it a whisky. Neat."

Andrews takes Morgan off his hands; he talks to Murphy instead for a while. It's always a bit of a mindfuck, but at least he's got as little interest in Ariel Reznick as he does.

Park sits down next to him later. 

"Claire's cancer patient died," he says, with no preamble. "That's where she went." He gets up. "Just thought you should know."

  
===

  
He doesn't say anything as he ambles next to her on the balcony. 

She glances at him, then back away. "You always did know where to find me," she says, along with a tiny bitter smile. 

It feels weird; they've been distant lately. But he can always feel the insistent pull of his underlying bond with her, magnetic and strong. That never changes, no matter what else is going on. 

"Truce," he says. "I just wanted to check you were okay."

She looks at him and purses her lips. 

"I'm not dating Ariel."

He frowns around this information, surprised and unclear what she wants him to do with it. 

"Okay."

"I mean- I was. I did. But I told him I'm not interested." She looks away and leans forward on the balcony rail. "I don't know why I thought you should know that."

He's silent for a second, then he leans his forearms on the rail too. 

"Yeah, you do."

She glances up at him, and shrugs, before she pushes off and starts to walk away. 

"Claire," he says, and she stops, but doesn't turn around. "I'm glad you're not."

She hesitates, half looks back before she goes. 

  
===

  
He dreams about her the next morning just before he wakes up; it's a bitter lurch when he turns over and realises she's not actually there. 

He wonders why her eyes are the thing he remembers most about his dream, looking coyly at him over her shoulder while white sheets slide down her body.

  
===

  
"Well, you ruined my brother's chances of happiness."

Morgan again. He doesn't have the patience for this. 

"What?" he plays dumb, keeps looking at the page in front of him. Hopes she'll disappear. She sits down opposite him instead. Fuck.

"If you're planning on screwing Claire, next time do it before I get my family members invested," she says, flippant and merciless. He's shocked by her insubordination.

"You trying to get thrown off every surgery that comes through the door?" he says, throwing down his case file with a thud. He's pissed; he hates the way this means people are noticing even more than he hates the blatant disrespect. "You're doing a pretty good job of it if so."

"I'm just saying," Morgan says, unperturbed. She never knows when to retreat. "She should have loved Ariel. He's exactly her type."

"If that's true, then why the hell are you talking about it to me?"

"Because it's pretty obvious she's holding out for you."

"Excuse me?"

"Come on. You think I haven't noticed the way she looks at you, I've been saying it for months-"

"Reznick, get out of my office or I swear to God, you're on scut work for the rest of the year."

She rolls her eyes and looks at him with disdain. "She'll give up hope eventually," she adds dismissively, and lets the door slam behind her. 

He feels a violent headache blossoming behind his temples. 

  
===

  
He doesn't know why he goes to find her that night. Maybe Morgan struck a nerve. But he does it.

Tracks her down in the locker room, finds her sitting where she always does when she's got a load on her mind. 

She glances up at him like it's no surprise, and he sits down next to her.

He left his jacket somewhere else; his shirtsleeves are carelessly rolled up. Tattoo on show, just like the silver in his hair when he runs his hand through it. 

"I'm not a good fit for you," he tells her. She looks at him. "I'm older. I'm your boss. I have a terrible track record with dating women in this hospital."

She almost smiles, but doesn't, and says nothing. 

"But I hate it when you date other people," he admits, grudgingly, and she looks up again. 

"I know," she says. "Why do you think I do it?

He rolls his eyes at her and sighs. She gets up and opens her locker, and he gets to his feet too. Thinks about leaving, but lingers instead.

"I hate it when you date other people too," she says, all in a rush. He half-turns. 

"I know," he replies. "Why do you think I don't?"

She looks at him a little apologetically, then, as she shuts her bag and brushes past him. 

"I'm not going to see anyone else," she says over her shoulder. 

It's a vow she should never be making to him. For him. But he's not quite noble enough to stop her.

  
===

  
He flirts with a nurse by mistake; he just meant to be nice but he's handed a blank DNR form with her number on it.

He wonders what possesses him to say out loud that he's kind of involved with somebody as he hands it back. 

  
===

  
"You know, I almost missed out on being with my wife because I thought I wasn't good enough for her."

It's a Friday night and he's playing darts in a bar with Park. Apparently meaningless, polite chitchat is now something none of his residents is willing to give him. 

He gives a long suffering sigh as he retrieves the dart he threw way off, and glances at Park. 

"How so?"

"She was America's sweetheart, and I was the weird Asian kid always getting into trouble. I didn't fit in, so I overcompensated."

He's not sure where Park's going with this, and throws another dart. Closer, but still off.

"Her mom and dad didn't like me, but she did. I said she should find somebody better for her, somebody white with a trust fund like she had. So she did. Bobby Walters. I'll never forget that asshole." Park throws a shot and hits dead centre. 

"You beat his ass?" he says, and Park laughs. 

"Not exactly. But maybe she'd have wound up married to the guy if I hadn't stopped dragging my feet."

He looks at Park sidelong. "We're not talking about you, are we?"

"Nice deduction," Park says, smirking. He wonders when he became such a soft touch that all his residents give him this much attitude. 

"It's not that simple."

"Never is, but if you keep waiting you'll miss your shot altogether."

He lines up his last dart, and finally hits his mark.

  
===

  
He sees her walking outside the hospital; he knows her car's in for repairs and she's heading for the bus. She's still not in the habit of taking cabs. 

He pulls up alongside her and winds down the passenger window. She looks at him, perplexed, and he leaps over the metaphorical edge before he can chicken out. 

"Get in," he says, and she scoffs at his cockiness.

"How do I know I'm not going to end up dead in a ditch?" she says, leaning in his window. He rolls his eyes as she opens the door and gets in. 

He thinks he probably just meant to drive her home; what he actually does is take her to a tiny Italian place he knows a few blocks from her place. He's friendly with the owners and the pasta is homemade. He thinks she'll like it. 

She looks surprised, then a bit perplexed when he parks, but he just smiles, and gets out of the car. She cottons on when she sees the restaurant and he opens the door for her, already hit by the smoky scent of wood burning ovens and fresh rosemary. 

"Did you just bring me on a date you didn't ask me to go on?" she says, her eyes alive with amusement and mischief. 

"Maybe I did," he replies, and that seems to surprise her; she assumed he would laugh it off, maybe evade, but he's suddenly done with the games.

And as he sits down opposite her at a small table for two in the most intimate spot in town and asks her every question he's ever wanted to ask but thought he couldn't, there's really not much doubt about what this is. 

There's even less when he finally does drop her off at her place, and instead of getting back into his car he lets himself linger on her doorstep with his hands brushing her waist, and then places the very softest of kisses to her waiting lips.

  
===

  
Lim comes by his office the next day and talks at him for a good fifteen minutes; he's so distracted he doesn't take in a single word. 

He gets a pissed off email from her later when he doesn't do whatever he was meant to do, but when he catches Claire's eye through the glass he really can't bring himself to care. 

  
===

  
He knows she's waiting for him to address what happened on their probably-a-date but the thought of it makes him uncharacteristically nervous. 

It's unfair on her but he has no idea how he's meant to navigate the reality that she'll be the third colleague he's been involved with in as many years, and his resident to boot.

Admittedly a resident not that far off completing her rotation, and one he's almost certainly in love with. Actual, undeniable love, the kind that makes old people get misty eyed when they look back on it. It's not just a passing fling.

And Claire's not going to take his bullshit. 

"Are we ever going to talk about it?" she demands, dumping her tray down opposite him in the cafeteria. 

He glances around him on instinct, and she gives him a withering look. He's distracted by the way her lips purse when she's annoyed; idly, he just wants to kiss her again. 

Realistically, he has to figure this out. 

"It's going to get messy," he warns. "As long as you're a resident, this looks bad. Worse for you."

"I'm not waiting for a right time that doesn't exist, Neil." she says. "Either we give this a go, or..." she shakes her head. "Or I need to move on."

_You'll miss your shot._

He looks at her for several long moments.

"Three weeks," he says at last. She looks confused. "Pick your specialism. Hand in your form. If you still want this in three weeks, I'm not going to hold back."

He sees the little triumphant flicker in her eyes, and he knows already deep in his bones she's not going to change her mind.

  
===

  
She chooses, and it's not cardiothoracics.

He knows she considered it, knows she would have been excellent at it, and he made pretty damn sure she didn't make any rash decisions based on what it would mean for them, for _him_. That would be one thing he couldn't live with.

But she's always been good in a crisis; trauma makes sense, the way she instinctively goes to help wherever it's most urgent, and she's obviously got the ingenuity and the steel that it demands. 

He's loitering in the corridor outside as she submits the forms and when she sees him she stops. He looks her up and down, and she moves slowly into his personal space. 

"Time's up," she says, as he drops his eyes to her mouth and smiles. "Do I need to make it any clearer?"

He dares to steal the barest brush of her lips before he steps back, checks the corridor is empty. 

"Deal's a deal," he says, and damn if she doesn't look more lit up than he's ever seen her. It's a minor annoyance he's still her attending for a while yet, and they're definitely jumping the gun, but the truth is when she looks at him like that patience is far too big an ask. 

This is lit dynamite and the fuse is running out.

He almost slips up with her later that same day in his office, which is sort of not a surprise. The number of times he's sat behind his desk and thought about her coming in late at night when nobody else is around means that when it actually happens, it takes all of five minutes for him to have her pinned against a wall with his hand behind her head and her thigh wrapped around his. 

She's laughing around the way he kisses her so urgently at first and he might have taken offence, but she's so quickly moving to quiet gasps and hands running through his hair that he feels suitably validated. 

He could so easily have just thrown all caution aside and had her there and then, but there's still an old romantic in him that doesn't want to do this fast and dirty against a wall. Not yet, anyway.

He tears himself away from her and looks at her as the last of his resolve dies.

"My place," he says. 

  
===

  
Sometimes wanting something so badly for so long makes the feeling of actually getting it a let down, but this was never going to be one of those times. 

It's maybe the first time he's ever left an honest to god trail of clothes through his living room while struggling to get to the bedroom, like some kind of romantic cliché. It's genuinely hard to actually make it far enough, the way she keeps biting his lip and pushing him up against the nearest wall with her hands all over his bare skin, but somehow they just about make it. 

He lets her press him down into the bed and sit astride him, her fingers making short work of their remaining clothes as she leans down to press her lips to his.

Her braid is coming out from the way he keeps tangling his hands in her hair and the low light darkens her expression until she's heavy lidded and stunning as she slowly presses her lips to his tattoo.

"What were you thinking?" she teases, running her fingers over the lines as he raises his eyebrows. Her eyes are brilliant with mischief and lust and something that might just be so much more, and he can't stop the breathless laugh as he reaches for her again.

He tips her on her back in playful retribution and she doesn't fight him; she welcomes him with open arms and teasing, breathy words and he thinks he deserves some kind of fucking medal for having resisted her this long. 

Because she is incredible, and if this moment with her is the sum total of what he ever achieves in life he knows already he will happily consider himself accomplished beyond all measure.

Because the power and the ecstasy of this maddening climb with her must surely outweigh any fear of time or death that has ever lingered in the back of his all too human mind. 

  
===

  
He finds out she is neither particularly quiet, nor noisy when she comes. Somewhere finely balanced in between, and somehow the sound is poetry itself. 

  
===

  
"I was waiting for you before I even knew I was," she tells him later, drowsy and placid as he strokes her cooling skin and lines their bodies and their hearts and their minds up in one delicate motion that rocks away the chaos of improbability that's always surrounded them. 

"You made me suffer for it," he answers her, his lips still buried in the back of her neck. "A Reznick, Claire."

She laughs and turns over, tilting her head to look him in the eye as she runs her thumb over the stubble on his jaw.

"Nothing actually happened," she tells him. "Morgan was the only one who really thought that would work out."

"I wanted to fire her for that," he mumbles, and she laughs so very mirthfully. 

"She did me a favour," she says, her lips an inch from his as she lays her cheek on the pillow next to him. 

"Anyone would think you planned this," he says, and she smiles a self-satisfied sort of smile. He's not sure he wants to know the lengths she's gone to to drive him to absolute distraction; he thinks he'll probably find out someday. 

But it's kind of besides the point. 

Because it's funny how in lying there beside him she's not doing anything that can be described, except for making the whole entirety of his universe suddenly make sense like a compass that's finally stopped spinning. 

They took the long route, but as ever with these things, the view in the end is worth the climb.


End file.
